


A Teeny, Tiny Noise

by VCCV



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VCCV/pseuds/VCCV
Summary: John is sick. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone were there to help—Oh! Hello, Rodney!





	A Teeny, Tiny Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Beta: Sevfan

He was on fire. He could feel the heat pulsing against his flesh, creeping its way up to his face. Any minute now and he’d begin smothering from the heat waves. There was only one thing to do. He mustered his courage, took a deep, painful breath and moaned, flapping the edge of his blanket.

Immediately, a pecking noise he’d barely registered halted and, like the hand of God reaching down to douse him with a cooling fresh breeze, the suffocating heat was gone. The pecking sounds resumed, but he wasn’t concerned. John reveled in the soothing feeling of air flowing across his dry skin. It seeped into his flesh, slid around his aching muscles and settled into his bones.

All too soon, however, he began to shiver. The refreshing coolness turned to a painful chill. He burrowed around with his feet, trying to get back the warmth he remembered from minutes ago, but that warmth was elusive. A small gust of air pushed forth from his lips, unintentionally carrying a teeny, tiny sound with it.

A sigh came from somewhere to the right of him, and the pecking stopped again. Suddenly, the glorious, beautiful warmth re-enveloped him, and he snuggled down into it with a happy sound. A small chuckle followed his actions, and he cracked open an eye to see the source.

Rodney sat beside him, smirking as he began typing once more. Ah, John had found the elusive source of the pecking sound. He hmphed in satisfaction and, as he did, noticed his scratchy throat had the consistency of the Sahara. He cleared his throat. And wow…could that have hurt any more?

A slight cough erupted, raking over his abused tissues as though it carried a thousand razor blades. Once begun, however, he couldn’t stop it. His chest contracted on him, over and over again, forcing razor-filled breaths from his lungs. He thought it might never end. It was exhausting. So much so that, when he’d finally managed to catch his breath as he lay weakly recovering, he might have made that teeny, tiny noise again.

The pecking once again ceased, followed by the sigh from before. A clinking came, perhaps some swishing, and then icy coldness was pressing against his lips. He opened them gladly, allowing the frozen chip of magnificence onto his swollen tongue. He pressed it against his aching gums, rubbed it over the roof of his mouth and let the soothing cold liquid melt into and over his slowly diminishing esophagus.

All too soon it was gone. He licked his lips, searching for more chilled goodness. Perhaps his lower lip protruded slightly in anticipation, and another chip of ice was set upon it. He smiled in satisfaction. As he did, he noticed the pull of his lip. He pursed his lips a bit, and then licked them several times, noting the wrinkled texture of skin left too long without moisture. To no avail, for all of his licking, the dry feeling remained. He pursed his lips once more and sighed wistfully, hoping they wouldn’t crack too badly.

“Oh, for…”

A small popping sound, and waxy slickness was smoothed over his parched lips. First his top lip, then his bottom, then the corners. He was glad of that. The corners hurt worst of all when they cracked.

His nose tickled. He sniffed. It tickled some more. He wriggled it. His eyes began tearing up and he squeezed them shut. Tingles shot through his sinuses and he couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Haaachoooo!” Oh, that had hurt! He was sure his brain was imploding. Perhaps something had been shoved into his eye when he jerked through the sneeze. He was certain death was imminent.

“That’s disgusting, Sheppard!”

Now with the noise. The horrible shouting noise. Oh, his aching head! He gusted out a sigh, perhaps causing another teeny, tiny noise.

“Oh, for…Here.” Softness was thrust into his hands.

“Blow.” He lifted the softness to his nose and sucked in another huge breath to do the job right. Oh, my. Quite a lot there. Perhaps he’d need more tissue.

“Oh, ew! Jesus, Sheppard…ugh, here.” More tissues appeared as if by magic in his hands. He blew again. When he was through, he let his hands fall weakly to his side. He felt scrabbling on his legs and heard a metallic thunk a moment later.

“Lovely. Leave me to scrape your disease-infested snot rags off your body. It’s about time for your medicine. You ready for it?”

Medicine. He remembered medicine.

Not the good kind that Carson, or more recently Keller, handed out. That was totally painless, injected into an IV and off to la-la land. He remembered this medicine was nothing like that. It was thick, syrupy. It coated his tongue and slipped between his teeth so that he’d still taste it long minutes later. And it tasted of cherries. Not good, Royal or Bing cherries, either. Fermented, curdled, nasty cherries. And the metal spoon from whence they came clinked on his teeth in a way he didn’t like.

He whuffed his displeasure and turned his head with finality. His head was rudely turned back, and he was pulled up from his comfy prone position. He squinched up his nose and turned down his mouth in protest. All he got for it was a snort of amusement and the chink of the glass bottle on the dreaded metal spoon.

He tried to lie back down, but a warm body was in his way. All he managed to do was lean his head back against a wide shoulder. He hadn’t been able to smell anything in forever, but he could smell the horrid cherries as they came closer, closer, closer to his mouth.

“Open.”

The feared metal spoon touched his lips and he squeezed them tightly together. Ha! See if you can get…it…in…wow, he really couldn’t breathe through his nose at all, could he? He opened up his mouth to suck in a breath, and cherries invaded his sacred portal.

He thrashed left. He thrashed right. He wrinkled his nose and gave a protesting growl (which even he had to admit sounded a bit like mewling) and was all set to return the liquid back to the awful spoon when…

“You spit that back at me and I’ll shove the rest of the bottle up your ass, Colonel.”

…he changed his mind and swallowed.

And swallowed.

And swallowed again. He couldn’t get that nasty taste out of his mouth. He might have made a teeny, tiny noise again. The sound of liquid sloshing from a container made his mouth water, which swished around the cherries. He was about to sigh pathetically when the rim of a glass was placed onto his bottom lip. He distrustfully waited until the cool liquid inside had touched his lips and he had verified that it was just water, not more cherry goo, before he took a few small sips.

More swallowing. Oh, how that hurt. He grimaced.

“Open.”

He was a bit trepiditious. After all, the first open had been followed by liquid death. But, the second had contained much more pleasurable results. Finally, he complied.

“Wider.”

Icy, cooling, menthol-ly ambrosia misted over his tongue, over his abused throat. It came again, and again. He moaned in sheer joy as the pain receded for a brief time. He licked his lips. Hmm. The tissue seemed to have wiped off the Chapstick. His lower lip wobbled sadly. He supposed he’d just have to get used to cracked and painful....

Oh! There was more lovely slickness being smoothed over his desert-dry mouth.

“There. All better now? Any further pressing needs you have? Can I get back to work?”

John’s hand was empty. He hated how he felt empty when he was sick. Like no one cared, like he was all alone. He poked his hand out from under the cover and sighed. If only…

“Oh, for…” A warm, strong hand was placed in his. It cupped his slightly smaller hand with confidence. A thumb traced gently over the back of his hand and a sigh came from that direction. He heard something click closed and felt a second hand grasp his fingers. Rubbing, rubbing, careful and gently.

Mmm. He could probably go…to…sleep…

…now.


End file.
